An Exploratory Study Of Internet Use For Education And Research By Postgraduates In Aau

The application of communication media for education is very vital. Thernmost recent development among these communication media is thernInternet. The Internet diffuses very rapidly in all parts of the world, asrncompared to any other communication media before it. The role of thisrnmedia for advancement of education in developing countries, where arnstaggering economy and lack of educational materials is evident, is not arnquestionable issue. The case of Ethiopia is not an exception to the abovernfact. Nowadays, a significant increase in the use of Internet is beingrnwitnessed in Ethiopia, especially in higher learning institutions andrnamong academicians carrying out different researches.rnHowever, very little research has been done concerning the practical use ofrnInternet by students and its impacts. In light of this fact, this exploratoryrnstudy examines the use of Internet for academic purposes by students inrnhigher learning institutions. The main objective of the study is to examinernthe students’ pattern of Internet use and to determine the impact of thatrnuse on their academic studies. A qualitative data gathering approachrnconsisting of in-depth interview and focus group discussion was employedrnto meet the stipulated objectives of this research paper.rnThe findings have shown that there is an increasing dependency on thernInternet among the students for the purpose of doing assignments,rnresearches and coursework. The study also revealed that overwhelmingrnmajority of the respondents use the internet mostly for e-mailing, andrninformation searching, which were found to have potential impact on theirrnacademics. Experience in checking the reliability of sources from therninternet has been found rudimentary and most students have a tendencyrnof plagiarism owing to their heavily dependency on the Internet to accessrninformation. Limited access to the internet was found a deterring factorrnfor wider use of the internet. Finally, the need for incorporating coursesrnrelated to media literacy in the curriculum is recommended in order torncapitalize the appropriate usage of this technologically new medium - therninternet.

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